


warm and all-encompassing

by ohvictor



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Day At The Beach, Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon, Trans Character, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvictor/pseuds/ohvictor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After <i>everything</i>, they go to the beach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	warm and all-encompassing

**Author's Note:**

> this is a secret santa gift for my dear friend flynn. i hope you enjoy!!

They catch up on the drive down. Gon hasn’t seen Killua or Alluka in several months, and none of them have seen Ging in at least a year and a half. There’s adventures to recount, new memories, new haircuts, a few body mods (“I didn’t think old men had the right skin for new piercings,” Killua tells Ging as the car starts moving, prompting Ging to throw the map at his head), and it takes nearly an hour of talking before Gon runs out of questions to ask. Ging has enough anecdotes to fill the gaps, although some sound too far-fetched to be true, and when Alluka finally asks if he’s lying, he just winks at her without answering.

Ging puts on the radio for background noise after the chatter dies down. He’s a surprisingly calm driver, contrary to his personality; Alluka had stopped reflexively gripping the door handle after a few minutes on the highway, relaxing. She’s gotten taller in the time since they all last got together, and so has Gon. They agree to stand back to back once they arrive at the beach. Killua, safe now that Ging has nothing else to throw at him, is sure that Ging will be the shortest, and no one can heckle him for it because he’s probably right.

Inside the car Ging’s got the air conditioning blasting to combat the heat outside, and with everyone talking happily and the low hum of the wheels and the music in the background, it feels like everything Gon loves packed into a small space. Sunlight peeks in through the tinted windows, and Killua and Alluka’s laughter makes his heart soar as the car speeds its way to the beach.

The drive takes three hours, not counting a stop halfway through at a fast food restaurant for a bathroom and sodas. When they step out of Ging’s car in a parking lot a block from the water, it’s like entering another world. The smell of saltwater hits Gon’s nose immediately. The sun greets his upturned face, warm and all-encompassing, lighting up the skin on his cheeks and nose and arms with bright enthusiasm, like his smile, contagious. Alluka is putting on a big flowery sun-hat and Ging’s fiddling with the parking meter, but Killua watches as Gon spreads his arms and does a little spin. 

“Feels good, right?” he says.

Gon turns back to him with a grin. “I missed this. I missed you, Killua.”

Killua might have said something about how he’s done nothing, how he is nothing compared to this, but this time he bites his tongue, and the moment passes as a smile shared between them. Then Gon looks up at the sky once more, and then grabs Killua’s hand and pulls him behind the car to start taking things out of the trunk.

Ging’s beach day preparations consist of sunscreen, a bag of towels, and some snack food. Killua hoists the bag of towels onto his shoulder and Gon takes the rest in his hands. Ging and Alluka join them in a moment, Alluka practically vibrating with excitement and Ging with his hands in his pockets, blinking in the sunlight. A brief measuring session followed by a quick squabble resolves the height question; Ging is confirmed to be the smallest, much to his chagrin. The bottle of sunscreen makes its rounds as they all shed their extra clothes and prepare for the water, Killua helping Alluka get her back and Ging jamming a hat onto his hair to shield his eyes. Gon doesn’t really need the sunscreen--he tans rather than burns, it runs in the family--but he spreads a stripe across his cheeks anyway, because he likes the smell. Plain, clean; a complement to the sunshine.

They’re ready for the beach after another minute, and the tiny party makes its way down to the boardwalk, idle talk filling the silence.

“It’s a shame that Leorio and Kurapika couldn’t come,” says Gon. The current mission of the Zodiacs had kept them away. 

Ging, who had also involved himself in Zodiac affairs somehow, remains suspiciously quiet as to his own availability. 

“I’m sad that Kalluto is away, too,” Alluka adds. “But I’m sure they’ll come on the next trip.”

And then they’re walking out onto the boardwalk, and the sand is a few feet away, sloping down to meet the water. Ging walks faster now that the water is in sight, his eyes no longer fixed on his feet but on the horizon line, and Gon follows, walking at his side. Gon takes off his shoes so that his feet sink into the soft sand, his feet too tough to hurt upon contact with the hot ground. It’s nice and warm, actually, like being soaked in sunlight from bottom to top.

They walk past countless umbrellas, people spread out on towels, coolers set in the sand, laughing children, adults reading as their faces flush and tan in the sun. Ging comments on the tide, looks around for lifeguards, picks up a few seashells as they make their way to the water. 

“ _ Turritella _ ”, he murmurs, picking up a small, tightly coiled spiral shell and showing it to Gon in the palm of his hand. “I like these.”

Ultimately he puts each shell back, although Gon thinks Ging probably remembers them, in the way he himself sometimes catalogues small details within nature to look up or record later. 

Gon runs the last several steps to the point where the waves break, leaving Ging behind, and he sinks his toes into the wet sand, as a new wave comes up to brush over the tops of his feet. He looks up and out over the ocean, past the white-topped waves breaking at the shoreline to the dark, deep blue water closer to the horizon, further out. It takes over his senses, a deep swell before his eyes and seeping into his nose and mouth, the scent of saltwater and something so powerful filling his lungs, the pressure of a huge body of water and light flecks of water from incoming waves, like tiny invitations, alighting on his skin. It’s like greeting an old friend.

“It doesn’t feel like this back home,” he says to Killua, who’s caught up and is standing at his side. “On Whale Island. The water is all around there, so it doesn’t feel as intimidating as facing it head-on like this.”

“It smells different here, too,” says Killua. “I remember. It smelled green on Whale Island, but here, it smells blue.”

He’s right. Gon inhales deep and slow, his chest and belly swelling like a sail catching the wind. He watches the water catching sunlight, bright spots dancing atop the breaking waves, and he thinks he wants to be that sunlight, able to ride the waves so easily. Killua would say he already is. 

They lay out towels on the beach, and then Gon and Killua go splashing into the water, leaving Alluka and Ging to look after their stuff. Ging takes off his shirt, revealing a grubby old binder, and spreads out on his towel, a book in his lap. Alluka sits with her legs crossed, watching the people around her with interest.

“I like your dress,” says a little boy from the family that’s set up their towels next to Ging and Alluka. He’s got a stripe of white sunscreen down his nose that he seems unaware of. Alluka giggles and thanks him.

They watch Gon and Killua in the water for a while; Ging reads his book, and Alluka catches the sun. She secretly doesn’t mind sunburn, because it leaves her tan when it all heals up, but she doesn’t burn or tan easily anyway. After a bit she gets up and joins Gon and Killua in the water, leaving Ging to set his book aside and watch the water, mesmerized by the light and the waves, drops of sun catching on the sea. 

It’s hours before they tire of the water enough to head back up the beach and explore the boardwalk, but Killua is excited about the arcade games, so eventually they pack up their towels and food and head back up. The boardwalk is bustling with people, but Killua manages to get to the front of every line he tries, and plays several of the brightly lit arcade games. He’s not excellent at anything besides the rhythm games but he is enthusiastic, and more than once he uses his Nen to compensate, shocking the console into giving him full scores.

“How are you even doing that?” says Gon, delighted.

“This is ridiculous,” says Ging, as Killua steps triumphantly away from the machine. “Let me have a go.”

He beats every game in the row like he’s played each one a thousand times. Gon and Alluka are in awe, but Killua scoffs right back at him about cheating.

“It’s not cheating, it’s natural talent,” says Ging, stubborn. Alluka and Gon gather up everyone’s winnings and exchange them at the prize counter for an absurdly large Shrek plush, which Gon carries cradled in his arms as they walk further down the boardwalk.

After the strip of arcade games the boardwalk fades into hotels and abandoned buildings, and Ging offers a few facts about the local architecture as they turn and head back. On the other side of the arcade, facing the beach, there are food stands with saltwater taffy, french fries, funnel cakes, ice cream, pizza, and any other beach food imaginable. Killua buys a huge box of saltwater taffy and the rest get ice cream cones, Gon feeling particularly ambitious with two scoops piled high and teetering a little as he sets off walking again.

The sun is setting as they make their way back down the sand, licking their ice cream. The water is like a painting, reflecting the setting sun and sky in swatches of deep red and purple, and then the dark, deep blue of the sky echoing that of the ocean. Gon finds it all-encompassing again, the cool evening breeze on his skin, the sounds of seagulls calling up above, the smell of the water wafting towards him on the wind. It’s a perfect end to the day.

“This was good,” he announces. Killua, next to him, laughs, and slips his hand into Gon’s as they watch the sun sink below the horizon, color spilling across the water. 

“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” Killua says.


End file.
